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I got a letter from my brother.

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My brother wrote me a letter for my birthday. I got it on Tuesday. What is it about Tuesday right now? Last Tuesday is when I got another upsetting letter from a family member. I’m not happy about this chaos all at once. I’d like it to take a number and stand in line.

This is the same person who never remembered my birthday (45 years) and never remembered my address. He was constantly asking for it. I’m his sister. He should know these things. But I was an afterthought. I was always an afterthought.

This is the same person that I stopped talking to two and a half years ago. It was spring of 2011. I’d finally had enough, for the second time in my life, of dealing with him. He was constantly twisting my words, and constantly paranoid. He was constantly pushing me around, and treating me as a thing instead of a person. He called me “Sister” rather than by my name. He isn’t getting treatment for his psychopathic behavior, and he isn’t saying he is sorry now.

This is the same person who has abused me throughout my life. He wants to build a bridge, he says. I don’t trust him. I’ve learned that to trust him is like letting a thief in my house. Against my better judgment I’ve let him back into my life before, only to be hurt worse each time. Every time he steals something. Sometimes it is just material possessions. Sometimes it is my peace of mind.

He included a picture of him and his son, all gangly at 17 and sticking out his tongue, standing with a cousin of ours. From the picture it looks like they were in England. I had a brief moment of terror – he’s gotten to that side of the family and is telling them his version of the truth. I could go for damage control and write them, but it would just be my word against his. This is an echo of last Tuesday’s drama all over again. It is sad to see how people can be swayed to believe the words of someone who has ulterior motives. If people don’t get both sides, it shows they don’t really care about the relationship. Or the truth.

This is the same person who had to declare bankruptcy because he was a quarter of a million dollars in debt. I haven’t had to declare bankruptcy, yet I don’t have the money to afford a trip to England. It just doesn’t seem fair. His son looks cheeky in this shot, with his tongue sticking out. I’m thinking if this is the best picture Ian could have sent, then that is saying something about the attitude of his child. At least he is letting his attitude show on his face. With Ian you had to get really close to see how crazy he was.

The psychopaths are hard to spot sometimes. Sometimes they look like normal people. That’s the problem. You get lulled into a false sense of safety and then BAM! You are hurt, badly. Blindsided. I’m getting tired of being blindsided. There are too many people recently that I thought I could trust that have suddenly gone batshit crazy on me.

I don’t want him back in my life. I don’t want to deal with him. I feel that there is a slice of guilt cake I’m being served. He’s offering to “build a bridge” and I’m refusing to walk across it. That way I look like the bad guy. I don’t trust my brother’s bridge. I have played this game before and I always fall into the river, and I always drown. The stones get thrown at me. I always get hurt.

I gave him up the same way I gave up fried foods and pot. I gave them up because I needed to get healthy. I needed to be strong. I knew those things were pulling me down. But every now and then I feel like I want to try those things again. I forget how bad they really make me feel. It has been so long that I’ve felt well that I forget what it feels like to feel bad. I forget that once I start down that path again it takes a lot of energy to get off of it again. I’m reminding myself of this now to steel myself. I don’t want to get hurt again.

We have no good memories together, he and I. I look askance at people when they talk about how lovely their brothers are to them. It seems like a Disney story, a fairy tale. I can’t match it up with my reality. I think he wants a relationship with me only because I’m the only sister he’ll ever have. I think that he is in love with the IDEA of a sister, while he is not even “in like” with his actual sister. He doesn’t know anything about me. He never has cared enough to see me as a person. I was always a pawn in his games, and he was always winning.

He hasn’t come to realize that “family” isn’t just a word or an idea. It requires both people working together. It requires kindness and compassion. It isn’t about one person manipulating another person. It isn’t about debate but dialogue. He hasn’t come to realize that “family” means nothing – it is artificial. You don’t choose your family. It is all an accident. And like most accidents, it is very messy and there is a lot of pain. Worse, sometimes you don’t heal right and you walk with a limp for the rest of your life.

A punch to the head woke me up.

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If you have told someone that something they do makes you uncomfortable, and they keep on doing it, then it is up to you to terminate the relationship.

That may sound harsh.

But it is as if you’ve put up your feelings for a vote. Who wins? Their needs or yours? Ideally, you’d both win. Ideally, everybody would be happy.

But if they feel they need to continue doing something that you have said is distressing or harmful to you, then they have voted. Their needs are more important than yours.

I went to a gathering once and I brought a jewelry project to work on. It is like a security blanket to me. I like having projects because it makes me feel more comfortable. I feel more exposed when I have nothing to work on.

A lady there wasn’t comfortable with me working on a project. I wasn’t right next to her. The project wasn’t loud or big. It wasn’t like I was taking notes. But she felt that in order for her to share her thoughts she needed me to not be doing anything and to look right at her.

She didn’t ask me directly. She mentioned casually, to the air it seemed, that she would rather each person pay full attention and not work on anything. It took me a little bit to understand that she meant me, she was so vague.

So I had a choice. Make her feel comfortable, and me feel uncomfortable, and stop working on my project. Or, pretend I didn’t hear her and keep on working. I’d feel a little comfortable because I’d have my project, but a little less than before she spoke because I would know that I was making someone else feel uncomfortable.

But really, I wasn’t making her feel uncomfortable. That was her choice.

I put my project up. And I developed a small amount of resentment to her, and a little bit to myself. I was upset that I didn’t stand up for myself. I was upset with her that she confronted me at all, and that she did it in such a passive-aggressive kind of way. It was my choice not to tell her how I felt. It was my choice to let her needs be more important than mine.

I had a coworker who thought it was funny to hit me on the back of my head when she walked by. She wouldn’t hit hard – she would often just catch my hair. That is an invasion of my personal space. That is a violation of social rules – we don’t touch each other unless it is mutual.

Now, I hate having people walk behind me anyway, but there is nothing I can do about it at work because of the arrangement of the desks. I don’t have an office. I don’t really even have a desk. I have a space that I usually work at when nobody else is around. It is a little discomforting to work in a place for many years and not really have a “place” to be, but that is for another post.

I first thought she was getting a rise out of it, out of getting in my personal space. So I dealt with her like I dealt with my big brother – pretend that I liked it. I figured that she’d stop because that works with big brothers. Don’t let them get the satisfaction of seeing you upset. Pretend it doesn’t bother you. It didn’t work. I had to tell her to quit, and in telling her I learned something very telling about my boss.

She laughed at me for telling this lady to quit hitting me. I should have seen that as the sign that it is. Hindsight is 20/20 they say. I learned this lesson later – don’t trust her with anything real. She isn’t really human.

I knew a guy in college named Carson who hurt me badly. He and I were sitting in a friend’s dorm room. I was sitting on the bed and he was sitting in a chair facing me. I don’t remember what we were talking about, but at some point in the conversation he reached over and pushed me sideways. My back was against the wall, and being pushed sideways meant that my head caught the part of the doorjamb where the doorknob was. It hurt a lot. I pulled forward, turned around, and saw what had caused the pain in my head. I told Carson to be careful – I’d gotten hurt from his shove. I figured it was an accident.

The second push wasn’t an accident. He took my shoulder, pulled me back to see where the doorjamb was, and then shoved my head sideways into the doorjamb.

Without thinking, I hit him as hard as I could right between the eyes. Every bit of energy and force I had in me was directed into that punch. I’m grateful that I didn’t hit him anywhere where it could have caused actual damage. I could have bloodied his nose, broken his teeth, bruised his eye. I could have killed him if I’d hit the right spot with that much force. It was an instinctive punch, and it did the job.

We stared at each other for what seemed like ten minutes. I’m sure it was only a minute, but time had slowed down. It does that when crazy things happen.

He broke the silence. “Don’t ever do that again.” He glowered at me.

“Don’t ever do that again.” I responded, indignant. He’d hurt me intentionally. There was no reason for it. I’d never done anything to him to deserve that. I’d never done anything to anybody to deserve that.

The first time is free. The first time is an accident. Once you’ve been told that you’ve harmed me, and you do it again, everything is over.

If they hurt you and you don’t tell them, then it is on you. If you tell them and they continue to hurt you, then they have made their choice. It is on you if you stay after that.

Repress – self-care, and boundaries

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At what point do you stop being yourself so that somebody else can feel comfortable? All the time? Half the time? Never?

Is it antisocial to do your own thing? Is a violence against your soul to not?

I’ve suppressed myself a lot throughout my life. I’ve been taught directly and indirectly that everybody else’s needs are always more important than my own. Perhaps some of it is just part of the training that every woman gets. Perhaps part is what I learned out of self defense from being raised in a house with a father who wasn’t emotionally there. We either walked on eggshells or just walked around him. We never really knew who he was going to be from day to day. Perhaps part of it is from having a brother who was the master of manipulation. The only trips he took me on were of the guilt variety.

I remember when I went to college in another town I realized I could be anybody I wanted to be. Nobody knew me. I didn’t have a history. I wasn’t Ian’s kid sister. I wasn’t Joan’s daughter. I wasn’t Pat’s kid. All of them had gone before me in that town and in that high school. They’d either taken classes there or had worked there. I had a sort of hand me down life, a sort of leftover existence, a sort of filtered reality. My life was not my own. People judged me based on what their experiences were with my family.

When I moved to another state I realized I could be anyone I wanted. So I decided to be myself. I stripped away everything that didn’t serve or suit me, and grew a new me from the inside out.

I’m doing that again now. I’ve been recreating myself over the past several years.

I deleted my sister in law as a “friend” on FB in part because she was always disagreeing with me. She often felt that my posts were going to upset her husband, or my husband. She asked me to delete the posts.

She reminds me a lot of how my brother tried to control me. Shame. Family honor. Secrets. Guilt. Don’t air the family business. Keep a stiff upper lip. Hold it in. What will “they” think?

I found myself thinking before many posts – what would she think? Would she censure me? Would she censor me? I took to posting some posts on my blog only, rather than on my FB page. I still got to speak, I just didn’t have to worry about her reading it.

Funny, she never commented on anything that she agreed with. It was always “I disagree” or “I respectfully disagree”, as if saying “respectfully” takes the sting out of the slap.

I can handle constructive criticism. I just can’t handle constant criticism.

So I had a choice. Her or me. Make her happy, or make me happy. I chose me.

It made her go a little spare for a bit.

It was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a while. Reminds me of when I deleted my brother. It was a little terrifying and a little bit exhilarating at the same time.

She now thinks I’ve gone mental, that something is wrong with me. She’s a therapist, so she should know, right? I think she’s putting the blame on me because it takes it off her. If she’d asked me privately if there was a problem, and listened to my feelings when I answered, then it would be different. Her reaction just proved to me that my decision was right.

Self-care is a sign of mental health. I will no longer allow abusive people into my life, regardless of who they are. Family members do not get free passes. In fact, I expect better from them.

I chose my husband. I did not choose his family, or who his family chose.

Healing negative self-talk.

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I have come to see a connection between self-hate and addiction. I have come to understand that negative self-talk is the same as eating junk food.

People know it is bad for them, but they keep doing it. Why? There has to be a payoff for any behavior we do, otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it.

Children who misbehave do so because it gets them attention. Any attention is better than no attention. If the parents don’t make a fuss over them when they do something right, but yell when they do something wrong, the child will persist in the misbehavior. This seems paradoxical. You’d think the child would want to not get yelled at, but really the goal is attention. Getting negative attention is still getting attention.

There are plenty of people whose parents yelled at them all the time when they were growing up. They were constantly taught that they was bad, wrong, stupid. Their parents drilled into them how imperfect they were.

The bad part is that they often learn this lesson well. Even with their parents not around, they will often tell themselves the same things. They may hit themselves or curse at themselves the same way their parents did when they made a mistake.

Sometimes they will seems to set themselves up for failure. They will not plan enough time to do a project. They will leave things for the last minute. They are then constantly late and overwhelmed and making mistakes. It is a self perpetuating cycle.

The scary part – they are living up to their parent’s image of them. There is some odd negative validation going on. There is a strange payoff.

This self-abuse is the same as a person who constantly binges on junk food. Our bodies crave fats and salt and sugar, even though it is bad for us. We will overeat at a buffet and feel miserable, yet we will do it again and again. Why? We know we should eat less and eat better food, but we don’t? Why?

It is the same thing. We get a payoff. We like the feeling we get from overeating and from eating unhealthy food. We like feeling like we are bad, like we are rebels. We are rebelling against good by being bad. The “bad boy” is a hero.

We have to retrain ourselves to get pleasure from good things. Nobody gets excited about broccoli and lima beans. Nobody gets excited about going to the gym. The payoff is quieter. The payoff is slower. It is harder to notice.

Your brain works better. Your clothes fit better. Your knees don’t hurt. Your heart works better. Your health improves. These are pretty good payoffs, but you don’t see them right away.

The same is true with negative thinking.

Negative self talk is an addiction the same way that overeating and drugs are. And it is healed the same way.

We humans need habits. Instead of going on autopilot and living with bad habits running your life, fill up your time with good habits. Seek positive choices and do them. Leave yourself reminders. You’ll forget. That is a normal trick of the bad-habit brain. That isn’t you.

Sometimes our minds are like small children that just want attention. Just like with children, ignore the bad and praise the good.

Make an intentional choice to say good things to yourself. Know that it takes a long time to retrain your mind. Nothing is automatic or easy. It takes a long time to get well. Have patience with the process. Understand that you won’t have patience at the beginning. That too is part of the process.

When you do something good, notice it. Don’t dismiss it. Write up a certificate. Draw up an award. Write down a list of all the good things you did that day.

Don’t make a negative list (“didn’t wreck the car”, “didn’t get into a fight”). While those are good things, work on noticing the little things that you did right. They have a way of hiding at first. It will get easier the more you do this. Make it a daily practice to write down at least three good things that happened that day. When that gets easy, increase the number.

Give yourself easy goals to start with. You are taking baby steps, not running a marathon.

You have to choose to love yourself in a way you were not shown how to by your parents or the people who you were raised with.

Sometimes we have to re-parent ourselves.

Sometimes they broke us, because they themselves were broken. They didn’t know any better. That doesn’t excuse the damage they did. But it does explain it, a little. People tend to repeat bad habits. People who were hurt tend to become people who hurt other people.

You don’t have to repeat the same bad habits. You can heal that wound.

I’m not going to lie here – it hurts to heal that wound. Just like with a broken leg, sometimes it has to be broken to finally heal right. It is painful whether the wound is physical or emotional or mental. It takes a long time to heal.

But it is so worth it. Who wants to walk with an emotional limp all the time? Sometimes it is “the devil you know” so you stick with it, because change is scary. But trust me, press on.

That pain you feel from trying to make a good change is a sign of healing. Don’t run from it. Lean into it, breathe, and walk forward. It will get easier.

And know that you aren’t alone on this journey.

A lot of us hide our brokenness, because we were taught that our brokenness is shameful. It isn’t. It is part of being human, and being human is a messy thing.

pain-notes-poem

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Too much acid (stress) not enough sweet (soothing)

Pain is a symptom that the unconscious problems are about to rise to the surface. You are about to have a breakthrough. You are about to be born.

Take away the pain through counseling; the pain may come back in another way. The basic coping methods have not been changed. It is the same as a person who is an alcoholic who is suddenly deprived of alcohol. He may start smoking or over eating.

We have to have a way to fill those holes.

Quit digging them.

Learn to accept them and realize they will never be filled. You are human and holes are normal.

See the desire to turn away from getting better, from whatever positive change you are doing- is your unconscious mind trying to protect itself.

It doesn’t want these hard emotions to come out. It is afraid of being embarrassed. It is not wise enough to know that if they are cleaned out, the job is done. You aren’t embarrassed. It is over.

Or perhaps it is afraid – it thinks it won’t have a job anymore.

Our body craves sweets and fats when we are depressed, which only make us more depressed. If we stand up to it and impose our conscious will, we will choose good things and break the cycle.

The same is true of thoughts and actions.

Look for unconscious habits.

Add intentional good habits to counter them.

“While you’re up…”

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When I was growing up, I thought “While you’re up” was my father’s name for me.

He sat. A lot. He sat so much that he got a new recliner every few years or so. I got the box.

I loved getting those boxes. I could make a house out of them, and did. I would drag the box down under the porch where the dog sheltered. I cut out windows and I drew in art on the walls. I spent as much time in that box as I was allowed. When I wasn’t in school or in bed, I was there. Until the box rotted from the exposure to the elements, that was my home away from home.

The more I think about my childhood, the more I understand why I escaped so much.

But I digress.

My Dad would sit in that recliner, staring at the TV, seemingly waiting for me to get up so he could ask me to get something for him. More coffee. Wash his glasses. A snack. Whatever. He never did any of these things for himself. He didn’t even know how to put a band-aid on himself.

How he managed to survive to adulthood escapes me.

Meanwhile he gained more and more weight, and smoked more and more cigarettes.

He said “while you’re up” until the day I stood my ground. I’d sprained my ankle, and was hopping around. Everywhere I went, I hopped. I was a teenager by this point, so I’d had a few years of getting used to this phrase.

I wanted a glass of lemonade, and I had sat for quite a while figuring out how I could get it from the kitchen to the living room with a minimum of mess. Once I decided on getting half a cup, and in a plastic cup, not a glass, I was set. Then I thought about it a little more.

I braced myself. I knew, deep down, like how the shore knows the tide will come in, that my father would say those inevitable words, those fateful words. I knew all the way down to my core that he would be totally oblivious to the fact that I couldn’t walk and everything was that much harder. I knew that he wouldn’t say “Oh, let me help you – what do you need?” That makes me laugh just thinking about that. I would have known that aliens had possessed my Dad if he had said that.

I prepared for that eventuality with the same planning I’d used to figure out how I was going to get a glass of lemonade while hopping.

I got up. Payoff. He said it. “While you’re up…”

And I let him have it. I let him know about how insensitive he was. I let him know that he could very well get up and get his own whatever-it-was. I probably put in something about how it would do him some good to get up and move every now and then.

He never asked me again.

Yes, children should respect their parents. But parents also need to respect their children, and teach them through their actions about self-respect and discipline and fortitude. Sure, there is a Commandment saying that children should honor their mother and father. But there is also Jesus saying that we need to love each other. There is nothing loving about using your child as a servant. There is nothing loving about expecting someone else to do everything for you.

In fact, being an enabler isn’t being loving at all.

The perspective of pain.

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I’d forgotten how exhausting pain is. Perhaps I never really knew. This experience is giving me a whole new perspective on compassion and empathy.

Remember how you are supposed to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes to understand them? What if it hurts too much to even bend over to put on those shoes? That too is a teacher. That too is a way in.

I’ve decided to bring back the term “lumbago”. I love it. It is so poetic. It is an old fashioned way of talking about lower back pain. Not many people use this term any more. I envision some old guy in a plaid shirt and brown pants hitched up a little too high. He’s got both arms held akimbo, hands a little further back, palms flat over his kidney area. He’s leaning back a little. “Ooh, my lumbago!” he moans to anyone who will listen.

“Lumbago” sounds so much better. The pain is still the same, but the word is better. Lumbago kind of sounds like a dance, but dancing is the last thing you want to do.

So. My lumbago. I don’t want to identify with it, but I do want to learn from it. I don’t want it to limit me, but I still want to be mindful.

I’d written a lot last night while sitting at my computer. It turns out this wasn’t the smartest move. I’d not made time to write enough yesterday and I’ve learned that writing helps my head quite a bit. It is creative and cleansing at the same time. So I needed to write, but sitting there for over an hour wasn’t the best idea. I’ve been doing a lot better, but it still has only been a week since I slipped a disc. I hurt quite a bit, and it took a long time to relax enough to go to bed.

This is a whole new experience for me. I’m not sure how to navigate this new territory. I’ve entered into this country without a phrase book or a pocket guide. So I forget every now and then that things are different, and I need to act differently.

Some things I’ve learned from my chiropractor. I’m heartened by how many people I know who go to him and trust him. I’ve heard such disparaging things about chiropractors all my life that I didn’t want to go last week, but now I knew I made the right choice. He is also a certified nutritionist, so I’m learning all sorts of useful tips in addition to getting my back adjusted.

I’ve learned from him that if you want to lessen inflammation, eat a vegetarian diet. I’ve learned that omega 6 increases inflammation, while omega 3 is healing. I’ve learned that a homeopathic muscle relaxer is more useful than a prescription one because it doesn’t make me have brain fog. It is also used for anxiety.

I’m meditating on that – do we tense up because we are anxious, or are we anxious because our muscles are tense? I’ve already written on this a little, and I think it is a key point.

I’ve learned things on my own as well. Pain shows up in ways other than pain. Sometimes the body tries to shield us from pain and so we don’t know we are hurting. The adrenal system is a great thing up to a point, but it can handle only so much. I’m learning it is important to recognize the signs of the adrenal system trying to take over and masking the pain before things get out of hand.

Pain makes me hungry. I crave salty snacks a lot right now. I’m hungry when I shouldn’t be hungry. I suspect this is a lot like when I realized the connection between PMS and cramps many years ago. Yield to the cravings and have terrible cramps. Notice them, but don’t succumb, and have a pain free time. I’m trying to do this now but the pain induced craving is really sneaky.

Funny how my body is trying to get me to eat the very things that will actually make things worse. Salt causes inflammation. Inflammation causes pain.

Our bodies don’t always know what is best for us, so it is up to us to use our minds. The bad part is that we don’t always know we are being misled. We think we are legitimately craving something we need, and we don’t. Our minds have to be the drivers, but sometimes our bodies carjack us.

Pain makes me tired. I never knew how exhausting pain is. I was absolutely wiped out last Tuesday. I was really bored being at home by myself. I’d been home from work for five days and I hadn’t been alone all of that, but enough that it was getting old. I went to eat at a buffet and it was very hard. It was hard to get there. It hurt to sit. I’m starting to think the Roman idea of reclining to eat has a lot of merit. When I was done I went to my car and just drove home. I’d had other small errands to do but I didn’t have the energy to do them.

This morning I was trying to write while sitting at the computer and I had the same problem I had last night. My lumbago was getting worse, and the pain was spreading to my side. I got up to lay down in the living room and nearly blacked out.

I’ve recently learned that too is part of the adrenal system. When I was at the chiropractor’s, the assistant took my blood pressure while I was sitting, and again while I was standing. The first number should be 10 points higher when standing. It was just 2.

I took a “body scan” of myself at that time and analyzed how I felt. Anxious. Unsettled. Nervous. A little dizzy and spacey in my head. Turns out that is the adrenal system covering pain. I felt pain and didn’t even realize how bad it was because my body was covering up for it.

Meanwhile the pain kept going on and I kept not getting relief for it. I didn’t know I needed relief. I didn’t know I was in pain.

How many people do we encounter who are in pain and they don’t even know it? They are irritable and difficult to deal with and they don’t even realize why? Whether the pain is physical or emotional makes no difference. Pain is pain, whatever the source. I’m of the opinion that the line between mental and physical is blurry at best.

I think I’ve found the tip of the iceberg. I think I’ve found a piece of the puzzle. I think I’ve found part of my calling, part of what I was created for.

I’m grateful for this pain, this experience, this lumbago. I’m grateful for the lesson this pain is teaching me. It took laying on my back to see things in a whole new way.

Pastoral Care class, the short version.

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A lot of people don’t know how to be around someone who is grieving. We say insensitive things. We run away, not knowing what to do. I took a class about this, and I certainly don’t have it all worked out or understand it all, but I think some of it that I’ve gleaned might be of help, so I’m going to share it.

Sometimes we say “it will be OK.” I think this is spurred on by fear. The friend doesn’t know how to be with a person who is in pain. They are trying to point towards the future, to point out that this won’t always be this way. The friend isn’t OK with what is happening right now, and doesn’t know how to deal with it.

It is healthy to acknowledge the way things are right now. It is ok to say that things are terrible. Sometimes it won’t be OK. Sometimes it will get worse. You as the caregiver have to be able to be present in the middle of that feeling.

I feel that we are afraid of feelings, any feelings. We are afraid of our own feelings, and of other people’s feelings. We don’t know how to be with someone who is experiencing anything other than joy, especially if that someone is ourself.

The trick is just to be there. You don’t have to fix anything. You just have to listen.

This can be the hardest thing you have ever done.

I heard a story about a man who was trying to help his wife who had breast cancer. He said he didn’t know whether to bring the bucket or the toolbox. He didn’t know if he should just listen to the wails and laments (the bucket) or if he should try to fix things (the toolbox). Sometimes it is a little of both.

We are taught to fix things. We are taught to have solutions. The trick here is that the solution is to let the other person get it out. The way you fix it is to be present to their pain. Feelings have a way of getting stuck inside us. We need to get them out.

We help by letting the other person have a safe place to let them out. How do we make it safe? Listen without judgment. The subject just is, it isn’t good or bad. Listen with your full attention. Don’t check your cell phone or watch TV. Make eye contact. Listen – don’t speak, except to ask questions to further your understanding of the issue.

Ask the person how you can help. Let them guide you. Often what you think they need isn’t helpful at all. Sometimes we will suggest what we would like, rather than trying to understand what the person would like. Sometimes people foist their own wishes and needs off on someone else, and walk away, thinking their duty is done.

I’ll give you an example. My brother sent a lily plant to the house when our Mom died. He expected me to plant it and then take care of it as a living memorial to her. I’d spent a year taking care of her, and he left us alone and poor in that time. There was no way I was going to take care of a lily plant, with finicky rules about how you had to dig it up and store the bulbs in a cool dark place every year. I’d just spent a year watching Mom die. I wasn’t prepared to spend time watching this plant die. I chucked that plant into the English Ivy, to let it fend for itself. His gift was worse than useless.

If the thought is what matters, put some thought into it. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes. If you can’t even get near that idea, ask them what would be useful, and do it.

Don’t ever say “I understand.” You don’t. Even if you have been through the exact same circumstance, you can’t understand what it is like for that person. Each person has a different history and a different emotional make-up. So what should you say? Don’t say anything. Ask. Ask the person to tell you more about it. Ask them to tell you how they feel. Feelings are what matter here.

One of the worst things you can ask is “why”. Don’t use the word “why” at all. “Why” puts people on the defensive. You can say “Can you tell me more about…” for instance.

Remember that it isn’t your pain. This may sound odd to say, but it may help you to have a sense of distance. By not trying to process your own pain, you can be there to help the other person process her pain.

Just wanting to be of help is helpful. It is OK to say you don’t know how to help. Just don’t leave. Keep up with your usual routine with each other. Have tea together, go to movies, have lunch. Make a point of spending time together.

If it is hard for you to be around her pain, remember that it is harder for her to be in the middle of it. You lessen her pain by sharing it with her. And you gain strength and knowledge for the next time you have a friend who is in pain.

News? No thanks.

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I no longer watch or read the news.

Hearing about yet another war or earthquake or tsunami or murder or kidnapping overwhelms me. I feel helpless. Perhaps I take things too personally. Perhaps I feel things too deeply. But hearing about tragedy, whether man-made or nature-made only wears me out.

I can’t do anything about it. I can’t fix it. I can’t make it right. I can’t save people.

I want to be a part of the change in this world. I want to let God work through me. But I’m only one person. I advocate for us all working together, but how can we make the world happier and safer when we are up against wave after wave of bad things happening?

Perhaps my problem is “news” really only means “bad news”.

Look at any news site. Every single article is bad news. Somebody killed somebody. Somebody died in some tragic way. A thousand people died in natural disaster. Flood or famine, it makes no difference whether the event is fast or slow, the result is the same. Yet another person died that I couldn’t help.

Yet another person got caught doing something wrong. Another person went to jail for stealing. Another virus was discovered that can’t be defeated and we are all going to die.

How come the news isn’t more balanced? It would help to hear about the discoveries that are being made. It would help to know about the good deeds that are done every day. These things don’t sell. Bad news sells. And I’m not buying anymore.

We don’t need to hear about the latest celebrity misadventure or adventure. I feel bad for celebrities, where their every move is watched by paparazzi. If we didn’t gobble up what the paparazzi are feeding us, perhaps it would go away. Making a movie or being a football star should be enough. They are famous for enough as is. Let them live their lives in peace.

Turn on the TV and it is either “reality show” or cop drama. These shows feed us an unhealthy idea of what is real with a side dish of paranoia. If you want reality, open up your front door and go outside. Talk to your neighbors. You won’t get reality on your TV.

Several years ago we had to get a second mortgage on our house. The air conditioner and the roof and the water heater all needed replacing in the same year. We cut expenses to afford it. Cable television was one of the things that went. The first week I was a little freaked out. Watching television was an essential part of how I defined myself. What would I do with my time?

It turned out to be the best thing ever. I had more time to read what I wanted to read. I was no longer being bombarded with ads for things I didn’t need. I was no longer mindlessly clicking through channels.

I’ve not watched broadcast TV for at least 5 years. Now I’ve decided to not read the news. I’d limited myself to only reading the news on applications on my phone such as Time, Huffington Post, the local news outlets, or I’d check Google’s news page. I’d limited myself to these because I could choose what I read. I didn’t have to be held hostage listening to a lot of news I wasn’t interested in before I got to the bits I was.

But even that is too much. It is all too much. It is all bad, and I can’t do anything about it, and I feel helpless.

Am I an ostrich? Am I putting my head in the sand? Or am I becoming awake to a mindless thing that is damaging?

In the Western, overly-connected, over stimulated, over saturated world we suffer from depression and anxiety at unmanageable levels. I propose that part of the cause is that we watch too much TV, and most of it is bad. I propose that part of that is that we are inundated with bad news.

We are wearing ourselves out. We are being worn away, drip by drip, by the endless Chinese water torture that is the “news”.

Authority and abuse.

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Abuse is abuse no matter who it comes from. It is easy to spot someone being abusive if they are a stranger or a bad guy on TV. It is much harder when it is a person in authority, or a person you should be able to trust. I’ve already written about some of this before but it is important enough to say again from a different perspective.

We are taught to give people the benefit of the doubt, and to give them second chances. We are taught to put our own needs second, or even last. We are taught to put up and shut up. But if someone is abusing you, you have not only the right but the obligation to tell them to stop, and if they don’t stop, then you have a choice. Continue to be abused, or leave the relationship.

I’ve already provided a list of helpful books in the “resources” section that I call “survival books”. They aren’t about how to start a campfire with a bit of string and wood, but they will keep you alive. Pick one or two of those to read and you’ll be on your way.

I was abused psychologically by my brother for many years. The breaking point was when I realized that if he was anyone other than my brother I would have left him years ago. I was operating under the Christian idea that I’m supposed to love my brother. While “brother” isn’t just literally “brother” but “everybody”, it is extra hard when that actual brother isn’t a nice person. He was (and probably is still) manipulative. He didn’t care about other people’s feelings. He only cared about what it meant to him.

After reading “Difficult Conversations” and “Codependent No More,” I decided to tell him how his behavior towards me made me feel. He backed off for a little bit, but then started with the same behavior all over again. He started slowly so I wouldn’t notice. It worked. Soon he was back to his same level of manipulation and guilt-trips and harassment. Soon I was feeling guilty for even saying anything. Perhaps I deserved this treatment. Perhaps I was supposed to take it. After all, this is my brother. Our Mom expected him to take care of me after she died. Older brothers are supposed to do that, right?

Then something amazing happened. I realized that he had addressed me as “Sister” for many years. I wasn’t even “Betsy.” I was a placeholder. I wasn’t a person. So I started to think. If he was anybody other than my brother, I wouldn’t even be talking to him. He isn’t a nice person. He certainly isn’t a friend. He can’t even be spoken to without expecting a confrontation. He was the kind of person where you could say “What a beautiful day it is outside!” and he would say “Are you saying it is time for me to mow the lawn?!” Every conversation went like that. He assumed that you were attacking him in some indirect way. My sister-in-law (a counselor) thinks he might be a paranoid schizophrenic. Perhaps he is. I don’t know. I just know he isn’t a nice person, and I took his abuse for way too long.

I want to encourage you to analyze your relationships. If you are not being treated as a valuable person, as a friend in all your relationships, then you need to speak up. Tell that person how you feel. Tell them how their words and actions make you feel. If they don’t take your words to heart, leave.

It is better to be alone than be in a relationship that is abusive. Our society doesn’t say this. Our society says that being alone means that something is wrong with you. I say that being together with an abusive person is far more wrong. Walk away. You can do better.

Now – here’s the big thing. This applies to everyone – regardless of position. We are taught to trust our family, and our friends, and our teachers, and our church. They are not to be questioned. They are supposed to be good to us. But remember the saying that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. People gain a certain level of power when they are in positions of authority. They gain even more when we give them free reign.

So if your parent, or your priest, or your politician does not treat you in a healthy, respectful way, speak up. If they don’t change, leave.